Be yourself. Refuse any other role he gives you.
She stepped back from the contraption, wiping her hands on her pink muslin dress. Mr Beattie had refused to issue a uniform until she proved herself capable.
“Pull the chain, Mr Hawke. I’m confident the tank is full. Do try not to drown.” She crossed the room and gripped the doorknob. “How would you avenge your mother then?”
CHAPTER FOUR
It wasn’t the lukewarm water raining over his head and chest that chilled him, nor Miss Harland’s refusal to play his scandalous game. It was her comment about his mother. How would he avenge her if Harland refused to step onto the battlefield? How could he beat a man who didn’t mind being called a coward?
Miss Harland had a way of slipping past his defences, striking the old wound with little more than a well-aimed word. Did she know he felt it like the jab of a blade to the?—
“Hawke.” Ramsey snapped his fingers, more amused than impatient. “I’m starting to think you left your wits in Mayfair because your head sure as hell isn’t here.”
Dominic blinked, realising he was seated in the leather chair behind his desk, not standing naked in the wretched basin while his angel ogled his calves.
What the devil had possessed him to strip off his clothes? Yes, he’d planned to have Miss Harland pump the water, but not while he was in it.
“Shall I repeat the question?” Ramsey flipped through five pages of notes and sighed like a man faced with amonumental task. “Who will you refuse? Lord Stapleton or Sir Graham? They brawled in the paddock over Mrs Langford when they came for the Bacchanal.”
He didn’t care if they throttled each other in the pantry. The ton was overrun with deviants. Two less would be a blessing. “Accept both. But charge a reparation fee for the trouble they caused.”
Ramsey took up the quill and made a note on the first page. “Mr Hearst listed his valet among his party. I’m told he likes to wander the house in the dead of night.”
A vision of the valet creeping into Miss Harland’s room tightened Dominic’s gut. Not that it mattered. She’d be gone before sunrise. “Hearst dresses himself or he doesn’t come.”
“He was hoping for a little privacy with his servant.”
“Then he should keep his lover on a leash. Put Hearst next to Smithers. He had a taste for the man and his wife at the Crimson Carnival.”
Talk of guests’ habits might shock some, but nothing was as obscene as the sounds of them feasting like the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And so it went on—lists of sickening requests, a house tailored for those addicted to pleasure. But there was nothing pleasurable about inviting another man into the marriage bed.
He was about to consider the next depraved demand when a sound drifted in through the half-open door.
“What the blazes is that?”
Ramsey tilted his head. “Singing, I’d say.”
“Iknowit’s singing. I’m not a fool.”
“That’s open to debate, considering the new maid is your enemy’s daughter. You should have had Jones drive her back to London. But I suspect you enjoy having her at your beck and call.”
Dominic scoffed. As if Miss Harland would ever bend toanyone. She hadn’t come to grovel. She’d come to hold him to account, chin high and claws bared, a walking reminder of his failings.
“Only days ago, you suggested I offer her a handsome reward. Now you’d have her bundled out before morning. Make up your mind.”
“You’re the one walking around as if you don’t know your arse from your elbow.” Ramsey leaned back in his chair, arms folded, watching him with a knowing smirk. “Since when did a woman leave you rattled? Maybe we should arrange a wager. There’s men who’d pay a king’s ransom to see you come undone.”
“They’d be wasting their coin.”
The singing drifted down the hallway, an old folk song about love, red roses and sweet summer meadows, one that had no place in this iniquitous den.
“My confusion stems from not knowing what to do about Harland.”Or his distracting daughter. No man wanted to look weak within his own walls.
A light rap sounded at the door, followed by the clatter of a tea tray. She appeared, bright as a button, not a tear in sight. But he knew sadness lingered behind the bravado. He wouldn’t put it past her to hide a dagger beneath the shortbread biscuits.
“I bring the coffee pot, Mr Hawke. I believe you ordered enough to quench a desert army.”
